The invention relates to a device for attaching a supplement to an exposed surface of signatures, which are transported one after another on a guide arrangement. Such a device includes a rotating gripping roller for picking up the supplements at the circumference by means of a controlled gripping tool. The rotating gripping roller has a rotational axis arranged approximately at a right angle to the transporting direction and at least approximately parallel to the exposed surface of the transported signatures. The device furthermore comprises an adhesive feeding device provided along the path for transporting the supplements.
German patent document DE-C-22 28 231 discloses a device of the type described above which is used with a gathering and wire-stitching machine. With this device, signatures are deposited on a saddle-shaped guide arrangement such that they straddle it and are conveyed along.
Such a device is also suitable for the processing of signatures into glued-together, thread-stitched or side-stitched book blocks. Prior to the binding of the book back, the signatures are deposited one above the other in a collection channel supplied by signature feeders, or in a gathering machine and are then conveyed further. In this procedure, the supplements are attached during transport toward the collection channel or inside the latter.
Increasingly, hard items are used as supplements. Such hard items, which include, among other things, CD's or product samples that are suitable as supplements for publications because of their flat shape, cannot be supplied with the known devices. Owing to their stiffness, they require a different processing method from that of flexible items.